


love to friday's king

by oryx



Category: High and Low: the Story of S.W.O.R.D. (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 23:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12023295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: An important date is discovered at Club Heaven.





	love to friday's king

**Author's Note:**

  * For [final_vent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/final_vent/gifts).



Koo has this habit, she’s found, of materializing seemingly out of nowhere. One moment a space is empty and the next he is just _there_ , like a magician’s trick, hands clasped neatly in front of him and looking all stiff and haughty and mildly disapproving. Today, when he appears without warning to hover by the arm of the couch, Kizzy puts down her nail file and glowers up at him.  
   
“Can I help you?” she demands.  
   
“…I have,” he says, with a strange note of hesitation to his voice that she’s not sure she’s ever heard before, “stumbled upon some information. I feel the need to share it with someone, and I suppose the two of you would make the most sense out of anyone, logically.”  
   
Kizzy exchanges a glance with Kaito, who blinks once, slowly – his usual reassurance that he’s just as put-off about something or someone as she is.  
   
She turns back to Koo and narrows her eyes as she asks: “What about?”  
   
Koo looks over his shoulder, furtive, as if checking to see if anyone is within listening range. “Follow me,” he says, inclining his head towards the door that leads to one of the private VIP rooms, and with a sigh Kizzy reluctantly follows, Kaito trailing after. It’s only once the door is shut firm behind them that Koo finally comes out and says it.  
   
“I know Rocky’s birthday.”  
   
Kizzy stares at him in silence for a long moment. Her thoughts are instantly racing, tumbling over one another, and there’s about a hundred questions she could ask right now, but what seems the most pressing is this:  
   
“He was _born_?”  
   
“Wha – ” Koo presses his mouth together in a thin, annoyed line. “Of course he was born.”  
   
Kizzy arches an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Like, are we certain he didn’t just spring fully formed out of a pile of white fur coats or something? You’ve heard his whole story, but. Can you _actually_ picture him ever being a child?”  
   
“That’s.” Koo’s frown deepens, brow knitting together as he ponders her words.  
   
Kaito tugs on her sleeve; she looks over to see him point at his mouth with a barely-there smile, and she can’t help the sharp, sudden laugh that bubbles up past her lips.  
   
“Right?” she says, attempting unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles. “Just imagine some little kid with metal teeth!”  
   
Koo clears his throat. “Jokes _aside_ ,” he says. “I am certain my information is accurate. How I came across it is – complicated. If you choose not to believe me, that’s your business. But I now know for a fact that his birthday is next Friday – exactly a week from today.”  
   
“Why even tell us to begin with?” Kizzy asks, crossing her arms and angling her chin.  
   
“It’s not for your sake,” Koo says briskly. “Just that it would seem… paltry, for me to be the only one of us giving him a gift. Even though of course mine will be the highest quality.”  
   
Kizzy can feel herself grinning. “Is that a challenge? ‘Who can find Rocky the best birthday gift?’ We could make it a little competition between all three of us.” She pauses. “You wouldn’t mind, right, Kaito-chan? It might be fun to be opponents, just for a bit.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and leans in to stare at him from beneath her eyelashes, and is pleased to see a slight spark in his eyes as he nods. That this would interest him is a nice bonus. She presses her lips against his cheek before turning back to Koo.  
   
“Alright,” she says. “It’s a challenge, then. And how about this: winner gets to call themself Rocky’s official second-in-command.”  
   
Koo gives her a wry look as he adjusts the cuffs on his jacket. “I hate to break this to you, but I am already _officially_ the Rascals’ second-in-command.”  
   
“Are you, though?” Kizzy asks. She taps a fingernail against her chin. “Last time I checked, we were here first.”  
   
And at that she smiles, acidic, and blows him an overdramatic kiss as she heads for the door.  
   
  
   
  
   
Two days later and she’s already beginning to regret her big talk.  
   
What do you even get for the guy who has… well, not everything, but _enough_ , certainly. Rocky has enough money to buy himself just about anything he might want (though she’s almost positive that Koo will still unearth some unbearably luxurious nonsense via one of his shady “connections” – something so high-end that even Rocky never knew it existed).  
   
_Things_ , she thinks with a scowl. Things are so needlessly complicated. She’s never much understood the things men like. (To the endless chagrin of her mother’s boyfriends back when she was younger.) Even Rocky, who has more intriguing taste than most she’s met, is still a bit of a mystery to her.  
   
She delivers one last swift kick to the man she’s just beaten into the tile, sighing deeply as she does so.  
   
“What’s wrong, Ki-chan?” Aizawa asks, having just finished off his own opponent with a punch to the gut, the man wheezing for breath as he falls to his knees. “You in love or something?”  
   
She glares at him. “Of course I’m in love, dumbass. That’s not the problem right now.”  
   
Kaito is kneeling down next to one of the unconscious thugs, thumbing through his wallet without much interest, and Kizzy wanders over to drape herself over his back, resting her chin on his shoulder.  
   
“Kaitoooo,” she whines. “You’re having trouble too, aren’t you? Thinking of something for the competition. You have to be, right?”  
   
Kaito reaches up to pat her on the top of the head, a hint of subtle amusement in his expression.  
   
“Not telling,” he says, and Kizzy’s mouth falls open in a gasp.  
   
“It’s like I don’t even know you sometimes,” she mutters.  
   
There is an abrupt _crash_ from behind the door leading to the back room of this shoddy little billiards hall, and Kizzy and Kaito both crane their necks in unison, just in time to see the door in question fly off its hinges, the man who’s just been kicked through it landing in a pathetic heap just a few feet away from them. Rocky steps over the fallen door and advances on the man, who’s still trying his best to scramble away. He doesn’t get very far, as Rocky’s cane descends on his wrist with vicious force a second later, finally compelling him to drop the cellphone clutched in his hand.  
   
“We’ll be taking this,” Rocky says, bending down to pick the thing up and holding it awkwardly between his fingertips. He flashes his teeth in an eerie smile. “And don’t think about taking these kinds of pictures again. Unless you’d like us to pay you another visit.”  
   
He passes the phone off to Koo, who pockets it and bows ever so slightly at the waist.  
   
“All right,” he says, turning to address the rest of them. “We’re done here, people. Though there is a chance that the photos may have been…”  
   
Kizzy isn’t listening. She leaps to her feet and strides over to stand directly in front of Rocky, reaching up to cup his face in her hands and stare intently into his eyes. Behind his shades, he blinks back at her like a cat might.  
   
“I’m thinking too hard about it, aren’t I?” she asks, with conviction. “All of – _this_ aside,” and here she gives him a contemplative once-over, “you’re just a simple, good-hearted idiot of a guy deep down. Just a pure, straightforward soul. Has anyone ever told you that?”  
   
Rocky blinks again. “You have,” he says. “Every time you’ve had a few drinks.”  
   
“Oh,” Kizzy says, frowning. “Right.” She pats him on the cheek a few times absentmindedly, nodding to herself. “Well, I’m declaring it now! I’m not gonna lose to those other two. You better look forward to it.”  
   
“…Look forward to what?” she can hear him ask as she walks away.  
   
“Who knows with her, sir,” is Koo’s dry reply.  
   
  
   
  
   
She spends the rest of the week making use of just about every old contact in her phone. Some of them she’s come _this_ close to getting rid of – those old bad memories making her fingers itch as they hovered over the “delete” button – but something always stopped her, like she knew she’d find herself here at some point: trying desperately to acquire a suitable birthday gift for her weird boss.  
   
She calls in favors to some people, promises a bunch more favors to others, and generally has some terrible and tiring conversations with individuals whose voices she’d hoped to never hear again.  
   
But all of it is rendered worth it when Friday rolls around and she has in her hands a small black box with a sparkly ribbon tied around it, her present safe inside.  
   
Koo takes one look at it and a self-satisfied smile tugs at his lips. “Doesn’t seem like much,” he says.  
   
“We’ll see about that,” she says sweetly.  
   
Rocky pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth as the three of them come to stand in front of him. Kizzy bares her teeth in a scowl and jabs a thumb towards the stairs, and the women on the couch instantly scatter.  
   
“What’s this about?” Rocky asks, raising an eyebrow.  
   
“One moment please,” Kizzy says, in a sing-song tone of voice, nudging Kaito with her elbow. He’s struggling with the program on his phone, but with one final tap he gets it, the screen behind them flickering before the White Rascals logo is replaced by the words “Happy Birthday” written in the same swooping font.  
   
Rocky stares at it in bewildered silence.  
   
“It _is_ your birthday today, is it not, sir?” Koo says. His face betrays nothing, but he sounds very slightly nervous, which isn’t an emotion Kizzy has ever heard on him before.  
   
Rocky lifts a hand to scrub along his jawline, his brow knitting together. “I… guess it is, yeah,” he says finally. “Haven’t thought about it in about a decade.”  
   
“Well it’s time to think about it again,” Kizzy says with a grin. “Because… happy birthday!”  
   
She and Kaito take their gifts out from behind their backs in unison, Koo following suit a moment later, procuring two pristine white boxes seemingly from nowhere. The larger one, square and sturdy, is the one he first places on the table in front of Rocky.  
   
“Only the finest for you, sir,” he says, inclining his head. He opens the lid to reveal cigars wrapped in pure white paper, each one with a complex, lavish-looking seal stamped on to its casing.  
   
Rocky lifts his eyes to look at him. “You can’t get these around here,” he says, and Koo simply smiles.  
   
“No, sir. You can’t.”  
   
The next box is thin and flat, and this one Koo presses directly into Rocky’s hands before removing the lid.  
   
They’re gloves. Kizzy might have (within reason) expected them to be white, yet instead they are a deep, vivid crimson, like blood and wine, with delicate white patterns sewn into them. Rocky lifts them out of the box and rubs the material between his fingers, his eyes widening a fraction.  
   
“I had them custom tailored for you,” Koo says, preening visibly. “They should be perfectly comfortable, and yet also sturdy enough to withstand some… abuse.”  
   
Rocky slides his hands into them and holds them up to the light, flexing his fingers experimentally, a bright, pleased sort of gleam in his eyes.  
   
Kizzy makes a ‘tch’ noise under her breath. “That’s great and all,” she says (it is, actually – they look beautiful on him), “but don’t think you’ve won. Kaito-chan, why don’t you give him your gift?” A pause. “Though of course it still won’t be as good as mine.”  
   
Kaito smiles and almost imperceptibly shakes his head as he steps forward to hand his present to Rocky, a shoddy looking gift bag that they probably gave him at the store. Rocky looks inside and stares down at the contents for a time before pulling out –  
   
A stuffed animal. A plushie white tanuki wearing a tiny pair of sunglasses.  
   
“Reminded me of you,” Kaito says softly, and Kizzy has to clap a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing out loud. It gets that much harder to contain when Rocky turns the thing’s face and they get an unintentional side-by-side comparison. Out of the corner of her eye she can even see Koo’s mouth twitch.  
   
She remembers that stuffed animal, though, like a vague pinprick in the back of her mind, and the realization hits her suddenly, laughter gone as her hand falls away from her face. She remembers a day months and months ago, looking back over her shoulder on the street to see Kaito staring into a cute little boutique window. Remembers him checking his wallet and looking deep into it before seeming to accept its emptiness, pocketing it and catching up to her with an apologetic smile. He’d been broke, then. He’d spent too much on her.  
   
Kizzy takes a breath, feeling fondness settle like a warm and solid weight in her chest. He’s such a kid sometimes. And Rocky –  
   
Haven’t thought about it in about a decade, Rocky had said. Does that mean no one has wished him a happy birthday in ten entire years? How else would someone forget the day they were born? She glances over at him, to where he’s pensively staring down his tiny lookalike.  
   
“Actually,” she says, her voice overloud, clapping her hands together and putting on her cutest pout. “I kinda cheated a bit! I was having trouble getting your present on my own. It was so hard I had to get help! So this,” and here she takes the tiny box from behind her back and slides it across the table, “is really from all three of us.”  
   
Kaito and Koo both turn to look at her in wide-eyed surprise.  
   
Rocky takes the box in hand and pulls off the ribbon, opening it to reveal her – their – gift. A simple slip of paper with an address and phone number neatly printed.  
   
“That’s the info for an old friend of mine and Kaito’s,” Kizzy says, with a sunny smile. “Someone I remember _very well_. Someone who’s still working _super_ hard for Doubt-chan behind the scenes, even though nowadays he tries to hide it. I don’t know why he would! He’s a gold-star employee, after all.”  
   
Next to her she can feel Koo and Kaito’s quiet amusement, feel them relaxing as they comprehend her meaning, settling into that confident ease that only the promise of a fight can really bring out in them. The three of them stand there and watch as, little by little, a crooked, silvery smile curves Rocky’s mouth.  
   
“Party time,” he says. “And happy birthday to me.”


End file.
